Jennifer K. Perkins

There is a special kind of pain that comes with sitting front row at a funeral. Before Saturday, the last time I sat on the front row was for my Mamaw’s funeral in 2008. At nine years old, the significance didn’t quit hit. I understood what death was and that life moving forward was going to look different. At nine years old though, you are still a child. At that age, death seems final, but in the same way that the end of a book seems final. You can go back and reread the book. You might catch little details that you missed here and there, but ultimately, the book is...

How are things in your world? This was a common question I would ask folks in the newsroom at WYMT. It became one of my catchphrases. As I walked around checking in with the staff each day, I would often ask, ‘How are things in your world?’ The question was often met with one of two answers – a thumbs up or, ‘it’s still spinning.’ Another one of my catchphrases became ‘cool beans.’ I don’t know where I picked it up, but once I started saying it, I never stopped. At the end of news meetings, I would often say ‘cool beans’ to which staff would respond, ‘the beans are cool.’ On...

What are you supposed to say when you are expected to say goodbye to something you very much wish to hold onto? In 2022, I posed that question as part of my farewell column. On Monday, I finally learned how to respond – ‘See you soon.’ After nearly four years working in broadcast television, I returned home to Corbin and The News Journal on Monday. This will be my third time working at the newspaper. You know what they say, third time is the charm. If not for my experiences here as both an intern and a reporter, I would not be the journalist I am today. This community is where I learned...

What are you supposed to say when you are expected to say goodbye to something you very much wish to hold onto? This is the very conundrum I am facing as I must say goodbye to this community as I embark on my next adventure.  For almost a year and a half, I have been blessed and honored to tell the stories of this community.  I have had opportunities to write joyful stories about businesses opening or about someone’s hobby turned life pursuit, but this career has also forced me to write the hard stories like those of murder or fire.  Like my university graduation cap, I never got to wear because of...

It took seventeen cents for me to begin to understand the often sad and frustrating reality of the approximately 150,000 Kentuckians living with dementia. When I arrived at Christian Community Care in Corbin on Feb. 24, I had a vague understanding of what I would be doing. I had been told I would experience a simulated version of what a dementia patient experiences daily by participating in a Virtual Dementia Tour®. The objectives of the tour were simple. Wearing gloves, goggles, shoe inserts and headphones, I needed to complete five simple tasks once I was inside the simulator room.  Once I had donned my ‘garb’, a facilitator guided me into the room...

McDonald's sells cheeseburgers, and newspapers sell news.  Recently, the News Journal has been experiencing a bit of an issue with social media users screenshotting content that has been posted behind our paywall and then sharing those photos in the comment section.  Let me explain why this is a really bad idea.  The first is it is illegal.  All of the content posted by the News Journal is copyrighted by the News Journal. When individuals reproduce the content, which is what a screenshot is, and then shares it in a comment of their own, they are essentially taking the content copyrighted by the newspaper and sharing it as if it was their own content...

I almost never became a journalist.  The first time I attended a Kentucky Intercollegiate Press Association (KIPA) Conference was the summer before my second year at Eastern Kentucky University in 2017.  I had just been hired on as the opinion’s editor at The Eastern Progress, which is the student media outlet at EKU.  KIPA is essentially a Kentucky Press Association Conference for college students. They don’t have a fancy awards banquet at the end, but they do have sessions where you can learn about different areas or topics of interest in journalism.  I remember being completely and utterly overwhelmed after my first KIPA session.  The first session I remember attending was a man who kept...

(Editor’s Note: This column was written before Christmas.) What happens when 20+ year holiday traditions are skipped for one year? Do they get reinstituted the following year? Are they forgotten? My family has had a few holiday traditions over the years that are set in stone. For example, on Christmas morning, my sister and I are not allowed in the living room until my mom or dad has turned on the video camera. Every Christmas gets videoed! It doesn’t matter if we open two gifts or 20 gifts, every Christmas morning gets videoed. As my sister and I have gotten older, some of our traditions have changed but even in our twenties, our videoed...

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas around Corbin! Between the decorations put out by the Corbin Public Works team and events sponsored by the city and tourism there is something to put everyone in the holiday spirit.  One holiday site that is a less widely-known is located right here in the office where I am writing this column.  For the first time ever, the News Journal has its very own holiday display located inside our office.  The décor is thanks to a very special elf that has come to visit the Tri-County area. He has travelled all the way from NP Headquarters, which is located at the North Pole,...

Have you ever been in the passenger seat of a car listening to music and watching out the window when all of a sudden you feel like you have experienced the exact same scenario before? Have you had that particular déjà vu experience? My most vivid memory of experiencing déjà vu while travelling happened three years ago. I knew for a fact that I hadn’t had the exact same experience before because I was on a different continent in a place I had never visited before. It was around this time three years ago; I was less than halfway through my study abroad semester at the University of St Andrews in...